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In Boulder County and elsewhere, physical books making strong, quiet comeback

By Jerd Smith

Business Editor

Posted:
05/07/2016 10:01:22 AM MDT

Updated:
05/08/2016 11:36:13 PM MDT

Becki Huffman, of Longmont, browses through books at the Barbed Wire Book Store in Longmont on Tuesday. (Jeremy Papasso / Staff Photographer)

Books are back

Sales at all book shops: up 2.5 percent in 2015

Sales at independent books shops: up 10 percent in 2015

No. of independent book shops: up 22 percent since 2009

Source: American Book Sellers Association, U.S. Census Bureau

There were perhaps a dozen of them. Copies of Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Russo's new novel, in a crisp dark yellow and red cover, on a cart. Just arrived from the publisher. The tomes hadn't even been shelved yet.

On this bright spring morning at the Boulder Book Store at 1107 Pearl St., buyers who were lined up at the register reached out almost automatically to snatch a copy of "Everybody's Fool."

"Fresh off the presses," said the clerk. "Your timing is perfect."

And that's true, not just for Richard Russo fans, but also for the state of physical books, which are enjoying a surge in popularity. As it turns out, reports of their death due to reader indifference were apparently off the mark, if not downright wrong.

The evidence is everywhere.

Miles away from downtown Boulder, a charming, almost life-sized doll in a cowboy hat and blue jeans crouches in the storefront of Longmont's Barbed Wire Books at 504 Main St. She is planting a book garden in a window display that is all about spring time and cultivation, including marijuana.

Here, too, books are being snatched up at a steady, profitable rate.

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"It's not a surprise to me," said Kathe Heinecken, who purchased this historic building in downtown Longmont in 2009, stocked it with books, created a community room in the back, parking outside, and never looked back.

"This shop has been in the black since day one," she said.

Inside her 6,000-square-foot emporium, some 75,000 books are for sale. More than 100 local authors are represented. And on any given night, writing classes convene, writers sign their latest editions, and those who love "Game of Thrones" can be found dissecting the latest scenes.

Surprising turnaround

Across the country, chain and independent book stores are alive and for the most part well, as readers reach out to buy physical books, to earmark pages, thumb through appendices, write in margins and immerse themselves in words.

Sales at all book stores rose some 2.5 percent last year, according to the U.S. Census bureau.

But sales at independent book shops rose even more, according to the American Book Sellers Association. In this category, sales have risen consistently every year since 2009, with sales in 2015 up 10 percent over the previous year. To date in 2016, sales are up 5 percent.

At the same time, the number of book stores is on the rise. Since 2009, the number of independent shops has increased 22 percent, growing from 1,401 to 1,712. And individual stores are expanding. By 2015, the number of locations had grown 34.8 percent, according to the book sellers association, growing from 1,651 stores in 2009 to 2,227 outlets last year.

"A lot of people find it surprising," said Oren Teicher, CEO of the White Plains, NY-based book sellers association. "Urban legend has suggested that physical books were going away. In fact, the opposite is true."

Teicher attributes the change, in part, to the rise of "localism" and the quest by consumers to shop at home-grown establishments. Technology that allows shops to reach customers quickly and more efficiently and to run at a lower cost has also aided the cause.

Employee Dustin Holland checks in books at the Barbed Wire Book Store in Longmont on Tuesday. For more photos of the bookstore go to www.dailycamera.com (Jeremy Papasso / Staff Photographer)

In addition, Teicher said, publishing companies have determined that, regardless of the thrall of online shopping and electronic books, the new work of writers has to be discovered in order to gain a broad audience and this discovery process occurs most effectively in brick and mortar shops.

"Publishers have figured out that they need these stores," he said, and they've changed their marketing and pricing approach to capitalize on that.

Libraries evolving

In libraries, too, the allure of books, both physical and digital, remains strong, according to Sari Feldman, president of the Chicago-based American Library Association.

But libraries have had to change, finding ways to reach out to readers. At a library district in Ohio, which Feldman oversees, each Thursday night on Facebook, local readers can connect to discuss that week's book, long after the library's front doors have been locked.

And like book sellers, libraries are finding new roles for themselves as "book advisers," helping readers discover what's new and what's suitable for each of them at a personal level.

"There is a hunger for a human connection around books," Feldman said. "We're not an algorithm."

Cautiously optimistic

David Bolduc, founder of the Boulder Book Store, now in its 40th year, would not characterize the survival of physical books and independent retail stores as miraculous or, even now, necessarily a sure thing.

In 2001, after the tech bubble burst, his sales were savaged. And then they were hit hard again with the introduction of electronic books and the Great Recession.

They've come back since then, although not as strong as they once were, he said.

He attributes the enduring nature of his business with the quest by consumers to find an interesting place to shop, one that is special to each community.

"It's sort of like what you see with craft breweries. There is an intimacy with your surroundings," he said.

That sales are rising at his store is a good thing, he said, due in part to what he believes is the waning attraction of electronic readers and the retro nature of the physical book.

"I'm not jumping up and down," said Bolduc. "But I guess I'm pleased."

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